SageSuggestions

"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance. And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
James Madison, Federalist No. 46, Jan. 29, 1788

Monday, August 17, 2015

Matt Barber talks about the strategy and the goals behind the real gay marriage movement. If this were the only movement seeming to tear down, brick by brick, the very foundation of our country we could deal with it, but it's not! All of us have relatives who came here from other parts of the world. If you were to examine your family history by having your dna tested you would probably be amazed, as I was, by a ancestral chart picturing your roots. We were truly the melting pot of the World, and it worked, immigrants helped build the greatest country in the history of the World.

If that's the case, why are you so concerned about the "undocumented immigrants" of today you ask? Because they are NOT immigrants, they are illegal aliens and there is a big difference. However, the "professional spinners" and the participating media have managed to convince us they are just a continuation of our history by repeatedly referring to them as "undocumented immigrants". They have done the same thing with "abortion" by softening it to a "woman's right to choose", but that is a subject for another time.

Never in our history have we allowed millions upon millions of people to "sneak" across our borders and then have advocates force us to honor their customs instead of our own. I have one relative who came here on the Mayflower and another in the hold of a ship as an indentured servant. The difference in the immigrants of then and the illegals of today is assimilation. Our relatives blended into their chosen country, they became Americans. Today's illegals want the benefits of living here while maintaining seperation by keeping their customs and forcing us to honor them, many times in lieu of our own. The "for life" political class have figured out that keeping us divided will help them keep their place at the trough!

What the hell happened to my country while I was sleeping, you ask a few years from now? I doubt most of you will much like the answer!

Thursday, July 3, 2014

This seems to be the time of year when we are asked what makes America great. This year the question seems to be asked much more frequently, and by many more people. Perhaps the better question might be what made America great!

It seems I have been asking myself the popular question more and more lately and I can honestly say I have not gotten a good answer. I can easily list those things that made America great, but it seems many of those great things about our Country may have gone missing.

Since I was born 2 1/2 years before Pearl Harbor I have lived through a myriad of changes in the way we live. As a small boy, I watched the celebrations after the last war we actually won, World War II. We listened to the news on the radio, watched the news reels at the movie theater on Saturday mornings, and later Walter Cronkite on our black and white television. We knew we were hearing the real news because no one ever said "got to go, I'm coming up on a hard break", which really means we are going to get 3 or 4 minutes of inane sales pitches! This time of year, we left the house early in the morning, came home for lunch if we were hungry, and were home in time for dinner. Then we played outside until the street lights came on.

Our baseball and football fields were any vacant lot big enough to hold the game. Sometimes, we had to make special ground rules because of a short left field, or a yard that could cost us our only ball if it were to end up there. We would find a patch of woods where we would play cowboys and indians with our toy guns. Sometimes we rode our bikes the 7 miles to a great fishing spot. After fishing for a while we would find a good spot, pretending we had made camp, and ate the lunch our moms packed for us. In Winter, those woods were great places to build forts for fierce, snowball fights. In the evenings, boys and girls alike, played kick the can or buffalo. When we were about 12, our parents enrolled us in a "hunter safety program" to learn the proper handling of guns, since at 14 we would be able to get a small game hunting license. Of course our fathers and grandfathers had already taught us most of the things covered in the program.

When school started in the Fall we walked to school in the morning and, until Junior High, home for lunch and after school. You had to be home after school to change out of your "school clothes". We walked to and from school every day until graduation from High School. This, of course, made for some interesting December walks in Watertown, New York!

We probably didn't like school any better than kids of today but our teachers, and parents, insisted we learn to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, in our heads, before the end of the 4th grade. At recess, or gym, class everyone participated unless they had a note from their doctor. We played the terribly dangerous game of dodge ball! No matter the game, someone always won! When we reached Junior High and High School there were courses for those kids who really weren't interested in the Three R's, like wood shop (where they actually built a house every year), machine shop, and auto mechanics. They were called Industrial Arts and graduates got their High School diplomas and were job ready on graduation. What a concept, someone must have realized everyone wasn't interested in college, but still needed to make a good living with a good job!

These are some of the reasons why I, and suspect many other, have difficulty answering the question as it relates to today. Since I am a Conservative/Liberatarion many self proclaimed pundits will be quick to say it is because I do not like Barack Obama, some will hint it relates to his color. The fact is, I do not know him and decided long ago it was not fair to express dislike for someone you did not know. As to his color, it has no bearing whatsoever on his ability to do the job he seemedto want so badly 7 years ago. It might however have a bearing on how he does his job, since he seems more in tune with those who fancy themselves entitled to the largesse of others, that is unless they are able to enrich the coffers of the Democratic party!

No, Barack Obama is only one of the factors in my inability to answer the "greatness" question, as it relates to today! I look around and see politicians expressing their pride in public service only interested in being elected again with no intention of serving anyone but themselves. I cringe when I read something written by our kids today or when I watch them struggle with a rudimentary math problem without their cell phone/calculator. This time of year we hear every candidate whining about the lack of funds for ourschools when their only purpose is to strengthen the unions who keep them in office.

Most of all, I am disappointed in the American people themselves who allow these things, and more. They keep politicians in office who allow illegals, called immigrants by a virtually, useless media, to strea across the border and become eligible for most of the "entitlements available today, and do nothing about it except blame it on the other party. Politicians who send their sons and daughters off to fight a war, with their hands tied by the rope of political correctness, and then call it a draw. Politicians who squander the taxes paid by those hard working Americans, who still have a job, all the while tearing down what this country stands for!

Maybe you think I'm wrong and so be it! I think, however, we still have the right to express our opinions, at least for now. Either way, I can only answer what made America great, I'm not so sure we will ever see that time again!

The Declaration of Independence

When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Format of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying it's Foundations on such Principles, and organizing it's Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate the time Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes, and accordingly all Experiences hath shewn, that Mankind more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinced a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

(The specific grievances are listed as is the Declaration of breaking the connections with Great Britain.

56 patriots (YOUR FOREFATHERS) signed the Declaration of Independence knowing they would be accused of Treason against the Crown and condemned to Death if caught!

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF THE DECLARATION ON LINE at: www.archives.gov>exhibits>charters

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Gettysburg Address

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place--for those who have given their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate--we cannot concecrate--we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who have struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember, what we say here but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.Abraham Lincoln